Mieko Hirota -- Mr. Shadow（ミスター・シャドー）/Body Talk（ボディー・トーク）

 

Veteran singer Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）, who passed away in the summer of 2020 at the age of 73, was someone who tried out her fair share of genres including kayo kyoku, jazz and City Pop. It was only in the last couple of weeks that I discovered that she had also hooked onto the revival of 1950s and 1960s pop arrangements in Japanese popular culture of the late 1970s and early 1980s, and that was through one of her last singles "Mr. Shadow" from September 1980.

According to her discography on J-Wiki, "Mr. Shadow" was her 61st of 66 singles and it was her first new single in over three years and after that, she wouldn't release another single until 1983, "Ai no Nokori ga"（愛のNOKORIGA）. "Mr. Shadow" was written by Ikuko Okado（おかどいくこ）and composed by Erika Takagi（高木エリカ）with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）as the arranger who came up with the old-style 50s pop twist albeit with a touch of synthesizer added. It may have been a homecoming of sorts for Hirota since her career had begun at the dawn of the 1960s when that particular music style was popular.

The B-side, "Body Talk", also by Okado and Takagi, takes things more into the also-popular City Pop territory under the arrangement of Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）. It's some good ol' jazz and disco, and Hirota has that Cleo Laine vibe in her vocals (including some scatting) as she sounds quite slinky and kittenish. Seeing an image of the original 45", I noticed that Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）had taken care of the chorus arrangement. I know that the list of musicians doesn't usually show up on a 45" liner sheet but I would love to know who was twiddling professionally on the guitar there. Maybe it's Matsushita but I don't know if that's usually his style.